


five people who loved john kennex

by santanico



Category: Almost Human
Genre: 5 Times, F/M, Gen, Platonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-28
Updated: 2014-02-28
Packaged: 2018-01-14 02:18:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1249063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/santanico/pseuds/santanico
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He attends his father’s funeral. He weeps. He gives no speech.</p>
            </blockquote>





	five people who loved john kennex

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Português brasileiro available: [Cinco pessoas que amaram John Kennex](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4581303) by [Rosetta (Melime)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melime/pseuds/Rosetta)



> some descriptions of violence, i wouldn't characterize it as overly disturbing or anything beyond what the show might explore. obviously written pre the finale so i can't attest to whether or not john's relationship w/his parents is accurate.

i. Anna’s eyes are wide and she grins at him as she strokes his cheek. “Who’s gonna say it first?” she says, but her voice is light and playful. He doesn’t mean to, not really, but he dips into her, presses his lips against hers in a warm kiss – a meaningful kiss. She doesn’t press back, and then end up with John laying on top of her on the bed, both of them laughing. Her laughter is infectious, sweet and honest. That’s how he would describe it if someone asked. 

“I love you,” he says, whispers it against her skin. She laughs again, throws her head back into the pillow, raising her arms above her head so her chest presses against his. He leans, comfortably, against her – soaks in the summertime that she brings, the fresh linen scent of her dress. When he touches her bare thigh she giggles and he holds tighter, pulls her against his hip. Her hands find his chest, and at first it’s just touch, until she pushes and he goes – falls against the bed himself, ends up with her straddling his waist, still smiling.

Everything about her seems to glow, at least in memory.

She whispers, maybe mouths, “I love you, too,” and everything about it is beyond real. To him she is as beautiful and precious as starlight, everything about her pure, uncontaminated. He imagines her as an angel, the woman who came into his life when he needed someone kind the most.

Does he protect her? He did.

The image blurs and fades in his mind; it’s all he really remembers of her clearly anymore.

He wonders if he sees her again, will her hair eventually gray? Will she live that long? Will he forget everything she taught him, the breathing exercises they did together, the stretching that lead to kissing that lead to _love_. He can’t call it anything else.

Will he wrap his fingers around her throat, squeeze, watch the life drain from her eyes before she shoots him in the gut and does the same to him?

He still believes.

ii.“John.” She knocks the breath out of him when she wraps her arms around his shoulders. Sandra Maldonado presses her face into his neck and he feels tears against his skin. He touches her back, tries to be tender even though his body doesn’t quite feel like a body anymore.

When she finally sits back, her eyes are red and there are circles under her eyes.

“I’m home,” he says, the first thing he can think. He’s been awake for three hours, slowly categorizing the time past, the seventeen months under his belt spent in a pointless coma. The wasted year and a half.

“Not yet,” she says, touches his forehead with the gentleness of a sister. His stomach clenches and pain ricochets through him like a bullet off of steel. He cringes and she touches him again. “You’ll be home when you’re back at the precinct.”

She kisses his cheek and he thinks that’s going to be the only time she ever expresses such physicality with him or with anyone else. Her nails are painted neon green, her lips a subtle pink.

“Don’t think that’ll be for a while,” he says with a shrug because it’s all he can muster.

Sandra says, “It’ll be sooner than you think. Rest up, okay?”

He nods.

He thinks about Anna Moore.

iii. John’s father rarely speaks to him.

His mother is a pillar of support. At fourteen, John Kennex wonders if other boys have distant fathers. The consensus is mostly no, or indifference. His friends spend time with their parents. His friends tell of exciting things their fathers do. His friends have surgeons and technical engineers and college professors for parents. Not cops.

John’s dad is a cop, and he’s a good cop. That’s what his mother says. She always smiles when she says it with a distant look in her eye, like something’s broken in her belief, but he can’t think that, doesn’t want to believe. He loves her. His mother. His pillar. He tells her as much.

“Hey Mom, I love you.”

She doesn’t say it back, but the glow in her eyes says something that can’t be spoken through word. She loves him. He doesn’t question it.

“John,” his father says, grips his arm. “You can never forget that your mother and I love you so much.”

John nods. Of course he knows that. He’s not a kid anymore, not really.

He attends his father’s funeral. He weeps. He gives no speech.

iv. Anger management teaches him, even if he denies it to the people who matter most.

The woman who leads the group says, her voice slow, “For many of you, it may be difficult to love yourselves. Rage can come from self-hatred and deprecation of oneself. No one can overcome this self-hatred without coming to terms with what it means. You may feel that you fluctuate, that you both love and hate yourself.” John doesn’t tell anyone that his heart jumps at that moment. The debate of the century, even – that he can love and hate himself in equal measure. It’s not his fault, but maybe it is. He should have done better.

 _Do I love myself?_ He knows it’s a common question, that he’s not the only person who’s ever dealt with it. He can tell by the way Valerie clenches her fist when Paul makes a comment about her being a chrome, her rich parents, her special upbringing. He can tell by the way Sandra doubts herself despite her credentials, her successes. He sees it in Dorian, whose eyes glaze over as he thinks of the betrayal of his creator. The betrayal of his father.

John can empathize with that, which is why he squeezes Dorian’s shoulder even though it only gets him a frown. Dorian’s eyes are oceans deep.

He regrets thinking that and looks away.

“John,” Dorian says. They’re in the car, they’re always in the car, driving to and from scenes, always working working working. John is tired. The pedals seems irrelevant. He wishes he trusted himself more.

“Dorian.”

“Love makes sense to me.”

“That’s good,” John says, watching the road, paying careful attention to his direction. He breathes in deeply through his nose. “Love is complicated.”

“No,” Dorian says, “Love is simple.”

That’s enough for John to accept it. He smiles. Yes, he can love himself. He can have doubts and love himself, still.

v. “You’re quiet.” He doesn’t know why he notices.

“John,” Dorian says, that voice, that sense. “Are there people who love me?”

“There are,” John says, and he says it easily.

“Who?”

“Me.” That seems to make Dorian smile.

“You don’t seem like the type to come out and say that you love someone like me.” A fair accusation. John shrugs.

“Promise not to tell anyone?” he says, and it seems easy enough. He looks at his coffee. They’re sitting at a table in a locally owned shop because John had said _No way in hell are we going in without coffee_ and Dorian had smiled instead of argued. “You’re important. It doesn’t take much for me.”

“Doesn’t it?” Dorian says, but it’s not a question he means to be answered. He turns his head to look out the large front window. “Perhaps I love you, too.”

“Perhaps,” John agrees, and laughs.


End file.
